


shenanigans

by keihtkogane



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Confessions, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Hair Dyeing, M/M, Making Out, Pidge and Lance come up with a plan™, Post Season 3, Their plan does not go according to plan, idk - Freeform, ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 07:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12338313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keihtkogane/pseuds/keihtkogane
Summary: Hair dye + Lance’s attraction to Keith + unexpressed emotions = lance’s current situationBasically, Keith’s hair looks hot and Lance is mad. It leads to a fight, explanations, and confessions.





	shenanigans

**Author's Note:**

> happy (very late) birthday Noah!! ily and hope you enjoy your bday fic ;)
> 
> completely un-beta’d. all mistakes are my own.

Lance blames Pidge, really. I mean, yeah, he was the one that forked over the money for the hair dye and showed it to Allura, but he wasn’t the one who decided that it would be, what Coran called, “An excellent idea for a bonding activity.” Even if he sort of was. Still, this was completely and totally not his fault.

\---

Two Hours Earlier

—-

“Okay team,” Shiro begins, “We’ve only got a few hours here, tops. I know we all want a break and to shop around a bit, but we’ve got to keep in mind that not everyone here will be on Voltron’s side.” He pauses to take a look around at the paladins who have clustered in a loose semi-circle around him and are currently nodding with various levels of agreement. “Everyone has their bayards?” He asks, and after a brief nod from everyone smiles, “Then let’s go!”

Lance immediately sets off with Pidge, leaving Hunk to hang out with Shiro and Keith. Both him and Pidge were still supremely disappointed with the fail that was finding video games during their last space mall adventure, so they were determined to at least locate and purchase something that they could use to pass the time.

When you aren’t busy fighting to save the universe, Lance has found, life on a spaceship isn’t as exciting as you’d think. There are basically seven options to pass the time: train (Keith’s preferred method), scour the universe for signs of Galra infestation (Shiro and Allura’s choice, usually), hang out by yourself somewhere in the castle (another option that Keith was accustomed to taking), help Coran with various activities around the castle (which is usually where Hunk could be found when he wasn’t experimenting in the kitchen), help Pidge build their freaky technology that Lance can’t even begin to understand (Hunk spends a lot of time participating in this option as well), or being alone in your room (Lance tends to avoid this option like the plague).

Lance was not on board with any of these options (usually), so he’d taken it upon himself to invent an eighth option, and even a ninth if he was really desperate.

Option #8: Find someone to hang out with  
Option #9: Find and annoy Keith

Hunk and Pidge, bless them, were usually more than willing to hang out with Lance, and for that he was grateful. His friends from the Garrison really provided an excellent way to avoid thinking about the weight that was resting on all of their shoulders-- the weight of the universe, literally --or unpleasant thoughts about his role on the team, or even about not seeing his family again. But at times when Hunk and Pidge were busy, and Lance didn’t particularly feel like helping Coran clean the healing pods-- he loved the man, honestly, but just how many times do the healing pods need to be cleaned for fuck’s sake --or bothering Shiro and/or Allura, who both more than deserved a moment of downtime, he sought out Keith.

Keith, although he was connecting more with Pidge and Hunk recently, was still the loner within their universe-saving group; and while he was friendly with Allura and Coran, developing a good friendship with Pidge and Hunk, and practically Shiro’s adopted brother, he and Lance still.... struggled. Immensely. Working together when their lives were in danger? That, they could do.  
And while Lance will freely admit that he had become a large part of Keith’s impulse control while Shiro had been... away (they all refused to call it missing), that tentative bond had disappeared almost the second Shiro was back and semi-functional.

In all honesty, Lance can understand how the shift happened so easily; Keith and Shiro have a bond similar to what Lance would describe with his own siblings, and Satan himself knows that Keith needs a hell of a lot of help with his controlling his impulses-- a burden Lance is semi-grateful no longer fell on him.

But, if he was honest, how quickly Keith shoved him aside after Shiro’s return didn’t feel great. Logically he knew that Shiro, and most likely Keith, didn’t mean any harm. They didn’t mean to make Lance feel like he was second choice, at best. Hunk said as much when Lance finally broke down and told him why he was acting strange (even if Hunk INCORRECTLY assumed that this feeling was a result of Lance’s repressed attraction to Keith). But it stung, honestly. Not that Lance would ever admit as much to anyone beyond Hunk.

But, anyway, the lack of fun activities on the ship was the reason him and Pidge were absolutely determined to find something during this trip to the space mall. Even though technically they were supposed to be on the lookout for a certain crystal.

\--------

Lance was beginning to get discouraged. He and Pidge had spent the last… hour? Two? Searching for something even remotely fun that they could bring back to the ship. Turns out aliens have a very different idea of fun than humans.

Lance lets out a groan as he enters a store called “ENTERTAIN!” and finds, yet again, nothing but very sharp and very dangerous-looking knives. And swords. And what looked like a mix between a sniper rifle and a... bow? With no arrows? Lance had no idea how that was supposed to work, let alone did he want to find out.

Seriously, the only person Lance could think of who would consider this shit legitimately fun was Keith, and-- yeah, Lance was not going down that road.

“Lance!” He hears from somewhere behind him, and turns to see Pidge waving him over from a kiosk in the middle of the seating area right outside ENTERTAIN!

He hurries out of the weird and vaguely threatening store and wanders over to Pidge. “Did you find something?” He asks excitedly once he gets near enough to her.

“Yes,” Pidge grins and points in front of her. Lance sees hair dye and frowns.

“Hair dye?” He picks up a box and turns it around to inspect the back. To him, at least, it looks like the packages he’d see at Walmart back on Earth.

“Yep,” Pidge grins wider, “On a scale of one to ten what’s the likelihood that we could convince Hunk to dye his hair yellow?”

Lance grins, “I’d say a strong eight and a half out of ten.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That depends on if you’re thinking that we buy hair dye for everyone on the ship and convince Allura that it’s a form of Earth bonding between good friends, so they have no choice but to say yes when she declares another bonding activity while we somehow escape and watch the drama unfold.”

“That is exactly what I’m thinking,” Pidge returns Lance’s grin with an evil cackle and picks up a box of bright red dye, “I think this will look very nice on Keith, don’t you?”

“Oh my dear Pidgeon, how I’ve missed hanging out with you,” Lance dramatically swoons.

“Come on,” Pidge hides her smile with an eye roll as she moves around the kiosk to see more color options stocked on the other side, “Help me pick out a shade of pink for Allura.”

\----------

Present

\---------

This was a bad idea. A really, really, really, really, bad idea. Quite possibly the worst idea Lance has had since he decided to jump off the roof to see if he could fly when he was five. Maybe even worse than that.

See, the problem is that their plan worked well. Worked too well. Without Hunk to talk Lance and Pidge out of buying the hair dye at that kiosk and without anyone around to make them see reason when they were selling their idea to Allura, the whole hair dye thing actually happened.

The most surprising part, to Lance at least, was that no one really argued? Once Allura brought the team into the dining room and explained her idea (because Lance and Pidge were not stupid enough to have the blame thrown on them, so they’d suggested she take credit), Shiro thought for a moment before smiling and responding with a “Sure!” Hunk didn’t even hesitate before running to grab his box of dye. Keith responded in a pretty calm manner by his standards too; he looked at Allura suspiciously for a few moments before turning his attention to Lance and Pidge, staring at them even more suspiciously than he had Allura, and finally turning his sharp gaze to Shiro, Hunk, and Coran, who were opening the hair dye boxing and organizing supplies.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he shrugged, “What’s the worst that could happen?” and stalked over to where Coran was unboxing the red dye, closely followed by Allura and the mice.

Pidge turns to Lance, mouth wide open in shock. “So…”

“Yeah,” Lance responds in a similarly gaping fashion. “I guess we’re dying our hair?”

Pidge looks down at the green box of dye in her hands and cringes, “Guess so.”

Lance takes a deep breath before following her over to the others.

\-------

A decent amount of time later, and Lance is regretting all his life choices. It’s not that he looks bad with his newly dyed blue hair, in fact he thinks he looks pretty damn good. It’s just, well, Keith.

Unknown to everyone at the time, hair dye reacts differently on Galra than it does on humans or Alteans. So, while Keith was supposed to have hair as fiery as his lion, he’d instead ended up with white hair.

Yes, white.

That’s not the problem though, in fact, Keith didn’t seemed to mind the mistake at all. The problem is that Keith looks good with white hair. Really good. Extremely good. And Lance is dying a slow and painful death.

He attempts to solve the problem by throwing himself into the activity and helping each of the other Paladins (plus Allura and Coran) dye their hair, but he finds his eye drawn over and over again to the shock of white hair sitting near Pidge. So when everyone was finished with the dye and sporting brand new hair colors-- pastel pink for Allura, yellow for Hunk, purple for Shiro, green for Pidge, pastel orange for Coran, white for Keith, and blue for Lance --Lance had nothing to distract himself with, and found himself face to face with the current bane of his existence.

“Hey, man!” Lance shrieks as Keith walks up to him. He flinches at his own attempt at sounding nonchalant and gives Keith a nervous grin, which is returned.

“Hey,” Keith replies. “I was heading down to the training room. Do you-- I mean, we could train? Together?”

“Sure,” Lance shrugs in another (awful) attempt at nonchalance.

Keith smiles softly at him-- oh my god his hair is so fluffy and his smile is so pure --and gestures for Lance to follow him. As if he doesn’t know where the training room is. Stupid Keith; Lance may not spend as much time training as the red paladin does, but he knows where the room is thank-you-very-much.

They make it down to the training room without talking, and spend the next fifteen minutes in much the same way, the only exception being Keith calling out to start the simulation and them occasionally shouting warnings at each other.

It’s nice, Lance thinks, being able to be around Keith without it automatically dissolving into bickering, as it had so often recently. Since Shiro had gotten back, really.

Lance will admit, if only to himself, that a lot of that is probably because of him. No one else needs to know that though.

“Lance!” Keith shouts, distracting him from his thoughts, just before a gladiator slams into him from the side and sending him crashing against the wall. He slides down in a heap and groans at the new pain in his left side.

“What the hell were you doing?” Keith asks as he makes his way over to Lance, who just groans in response because Keith has that look on his face. The look which usually means they’re seconds away from an argument. “Are you trying to get yourself injured? Pay attention for fuck’s sake!”

“I was,” Lance protests, rubbing the general area where the most pain is shooting through his body and glaring at Keith.

“No you weren’t,” Keith huffs, “As usual.”

“Hey! What is that supposed to mean, mullet?!”

“It means,” Keith seethes, stalking even closer to Lance who is still sprawled out on the floor, “That if you would pay attention for one goddamn minute, you might not get trampled by a gladiator that would have been easy to avoid!”

“Well,” Lance grits his teeth, “Sorry I can’t be Shiro.”

“What?” Keith, suddenly confused, stops a few steps away from Lance.

“You heard me!” Lance can’t keep his cool any longer. “I’m so fucking sorry I can’t be Shiro, ok! I know that you’d rather train with him! I mean, that’s the only reason you asked me down here right? So you could prove how much better you are?” Lance yells, ignoring Keith’s stunned expression. “You know what, Keith? I am so sick of you acting like everyone except for me deserves to be here. I know you hate me! No need to keep rubbing it in my face. So why don’t you,” Lance stands and stalks towards Keith, poking him in the chest and giving him his best glare, “Keep your pretty face away from me and just pretend like you can stand me.”

Keith blinks for a moment, recovers from his shock, and starts fuming. “Really, Lance?! You’re the one who decided we were rivals! You’re the one who can’t go five minutes without provoking me into some kind of challenge or fight! YOU’RE the one who suddenly hated me again after Shiro got back!”

“Oh please! You were so fucking happy that Shiro was back you would’ve been back to ignoring me within a day! I was just saving you the trouble, Keith.”

“I-- You-- Ugh!” Keith yells in frustration and lifts the end of his t-shirt up to wipe at his mouth, giving Lance a very nice (shut up, Lance’s brain) view of Keith’s abs. Which, paired with the new white hair, is a very dangerous combination.

“Don’t DO that!” Lance yells in frustration.

“Do what?!” Keith yells back, and takes a step closer to Lance.

“Don’t fucking just--” Lance waves his hand toward Keith in an attempt to explain without actually having to explain. When Keith looks at him, still angry, still confused, Lance groans. “Don’t act all hot when we’re arguing because it’s really fucking distracting and--”

“You think I’m hot?” Keith asks, torn between staying angry and showing his surprise.

Lance freezes. “Um, no. Of course not. Don’t try and change the subject, Keith!”

Keith just blinks, and Lance is momentarily worried that he caused some part of Keith’s brain to shut down or something, because he swears this is the longest Keith’s ever done without moving or blinking or-- “Right, well, I’m going. I’ll try to avoid you as much as possible from now on,” Lance grumbles and moves past a still-frozen Keith, but pauses at the door. “Oh, and I’ll tell Shiro that you want to train with him. If he’s not busy he’ll be down soon, I guess.”

Keith’s still shell-shocked, so Lance curses his own lack of filter and pushes the door open, stalking down the hallway towards his room, where he ends up running into Shiro. Literally.

“Hey, Lance!” Shiro smiles.

Lance’s returning smile is sharp, and he’s ashamed because there’s no doubt Shiro will be able to tell. “Hey. Keith’s wants to know if you want to train with him, he said to meet him in the training room,” Lance moves past Shiro, ignoring his confused expression. “I’m going to take a nap.”

\-------

Lance isn’t sure how long he spends in his room. Eventually Pidge comes knocking, telling him it’s time for dinner, but he ignores her and she goes away. Then Shiro comes, spends ten minutes or so asking him to come out, but Lance ignores him too and he goes away. Hunk shows up an hour or two later, probably. Lance ignores him too, even though it makes him feel even worse.

\--------

He can’t go back to sleep. He’s tried for what feels like ever and it just… isn’t happening. He assumes it’s late enough where everyone else will be asleep, so he sneaks out of his room and into the kitchen, smiling guiltily at the plate of food that Hunk no doubt left sitting out for Lance, in case he got hungry. He’s in the process of heating up the leftover goo and whatever the other stuff is when he feels, more than hears, someone else enter the room. Assuming it’s Hunk, Lance turns with a smile on his face, ready to apologize for ignoring them all earlier and thank him for the food.

It’s not Hunk, but a white-haired Keith.

“Hey,” Keith mumbles and scratches the back of his neck.

Lance doesn’t respond, just nods, and turns back around to face the kind-of microwave thing, and curses himself for ever coming out of his room.

He thinks, hopes, Keith will just leave. But instead he hears Keith sit at the table. Lance grits his teeth and removes the plate from the microwave-thing before spinning on his heel and making his way out of the room, managing to make it the entire way to the door without looking at Keith.

“Lance,” Keith says from his spot at the table. Lance freezes with one hand on the door and the other holding his plate. He doesn’t turn around though.

A minute of silence passes, and Lance is just about to push the door open and continue on his way when he hears Keith speak again. “I don’t hate you.” Lance tenses up, which Keith probably saw, because he continues a second later. “And-- I’m, well, sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t-- I shouldn’t, I mean,” Keith sighs, most likely frustrated at himself, and continues. “I remembered you from the Garrison.”

“What?” Lance finally speaks and turns away from the door, but stays where he is. Keith is slumped in one of the dining chairs with his elbows on the table and head resting in his hands. It hurts Lance’s heart a bit, to see him looking so miserable.

“When we rescued Shiro. I remembered you.”

“Why did you tell me you didn’t?” Lance asks, trying to reign in his anger. It had hurt when Keith didn’t remember him. Or, well, pretended to.

“I don’t know,” Keith pinches his temples with one hand, while his head still rests on the other. “It just, came out, I guess. I wanted to start over.”

“There would have been easier ways to start over,” Lance mumbles bitterly.

“I know,” Keith laughs, but there isn’t any humor in it, “I know.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to inform me that you lied about?” Lance asks, not even bothering to hide his bitterness.

“I’ve lied to you about a lot of things.”

“Thanks,” Lance scoffs. “That’s-- that’s great.”

“Lance,” Keith finally looks up at him, “I don’t hate you. I think you’re a fantastic pilot, and the best sharpshooter I’ve ever seen,” Lance feels himself freeze in shock, but Keith continues talking. “I don’t know where the team would be without you, honestly. I think in a lot of ways you hold us together, always checking up on us and making sure we take breaks from whatever we’re working on and just-- yeah. And, I’m sorry that I pushed you away once Shiro was back. You were more than a big help to me when I had to pilot the black lion and we weren’t fighting as often and,” Keith pauses, taking a deep breath, “I’m sorry.”

“Why did you?” Lance asks, moving a few steps closer to where Keith is sitting as he does.

“What?”

“Why did you push me away?”

“Because I was scared.” Keith admits. He looks away from Lance and rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“Why?” Lance asks, not even daring to hope.

Keith just looks at him. Lance looks back until it gets to be too much, then he looks away.

“I never hated you either,” Lance admits softly, moving a step closer. “I created the whole rivals thing because you were so much better at everything than I was. And I guess, I felt like if we were rivals, then we were on the same level, somewhat. It’s stupid.”

“We are on the same level. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, Lance. You may not be great in close combat, but you’re a great strategist. A lot of our most successful plans have been in part because of you, you know.”

Lance blushes and shakes his head, “Not really.”

“Yes really. Ask anyone on the team. They’ll tell you the same thing.”

Lance gulps and looks down, blinking away the tears that are attempting to form. “When Shiro got back and took control of the black lion again, when you started slowly pushing me away again, I started picking fights with you again so that you would hate me more than I hated you.”

“I know.”

“You do?” Lance lifts his head again to stare at Keith, who flushes and nods.

“Yeah. I knew. I let you do it.”

“Why?”

“I was scared. We’ve already established that.” Keith says, and Lance can almost feel his walls climbing building back up.

“Keith?” Lance waits until Keith looks at him again. “I was scared too.”

“Why?” Keith asks, and Lance thinks he sees a bit of hope in his eyes as well.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” Lance tries to joke it off. Keith just stares through him.

They stare at each other for what feels like forever before Keith stands up. “Ditto.”

“You first,” Lance responds, his hands starting to shake with nerves.

“I--” Keith steps closer. Opens his mouth to say something else. The doors slide open and Hunk steps into the room.

“Hey!” Hunk grins, oblivious to the intense aura of the room. “You got the food?”

“Yeah,” Lance responds, turning to shoot Hunk a quick smile before looking back at Keith. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he hears Hunk say from behind him.

“I’m, um, going to go back to bed,” Lance says, brushing slightly against Keith when he steps around him to set his plate on the table. “Thanks for the food, Hunk. See you, Keith.”

“Night, buddy! Sleep well!” Comes Hunk’s response. Keith just stares at him.

Lance walks out the door and back to his room, his entire body feels wound up, and he can kind of understand why Keith chooses to train when he feels like this. Once he arrives back in his room he allows himself to pace and go over his conversation with Keith before dropping onto his bed and putting his head in his hands, groaning softly.

He must have sat there for fifteen minutes or so, before there’s a knock at his door.

Figuring Hunk has come to talk to him about earlier, he groans quietly (he doesn’t want to hurt his best friend’s feelings) and heads to the door. He dazedly puts his hand against the sensor and automatically turns back towards his bed as he hears the door open.

Lance expects Hunk to either start talking or follow him into the room. What he doesn’t expect is for his shoulder to be grabbed before he can take a seat on the edge of his bed.

Worried about Hunk now, Lance turns with a question already half-formed. He turns to face Keith, who is staring at him with that same look in his eyes that Lance had noticed earlier, before they fought.

“Keith wha-“

Lance is cut off from his questioning by Keith quickly closing the last few inches of space between them with a kiss that knocks their teeth together. Lance freezes, unable to comprehend that Keith Kogane is literally kissing him right now; after he’d apologized to Lance and woah— is Lance sure this isn’t a dream?

Lance must’ve been frozen longer than he’d thought because Keith pulls back from the kind-of kiss with his cheeks flaming red and hair still brilliantly white. “I’m sorry,” Keith starts, awkwardly backing towards the door while still looking at Lance. “I just thought, I mean— I shouldn’t have. So I’ll jus-“ Lance cuts Keith off, much in the same way Keith had cut him off, except Lance’s kiss involves less teeth clashing.

Keith kisses him too, for a moment, before pulling back. “Um.”

“Keith,” Lance whispers, they’re lips barely brushing as he talks.

“Yeah?” Keith replies even though Lance can tell he’s not exactly focused on the conversation.

“Kiss me,” Lance whispers.

Keith, startled either by the command or Lance’s soft tone, looks him in the eye, seeming searching for something. He nods.

Lance breathes deeply a split second before Keith’s lips touch his again. And this time, it’s perfect. Without even thinking about it Lance places his arms on Keith’s shoulders, and Keith responds by placing his on Lance’s hip. They pause, both breathing in the small space between their mouths and opening their eyes to see each other’s dazed expressions.

They stare at each other for a beat more, then they’re kissing again. If you asked either one of them, later, they wouldn’t be able to tell you who’d initiated it again. They also wouldn’t have cared. Lance is starting to think he’s really died and gone to heaven because damn Keith’s a good kisser and he can’t believe this is actually happening.

Keith, probably sensing Lance was one hundred percent on board with the current situation, smiles softly before diving back in and softly running his tongue along Lance’s bottom lip. Lance gasps, allowing Keith entry, and Keith takes advantage of it; licking into Lance’s mouth softly but with passion.

Lance whines and pulls back, tilts his head to get a better angle, and dives right back in. They kiss like that for what feels simultaneously like days and seconds before Lance pulls back and gently grabs hold of Keith’s chin, moving his head to the side so that he has full access to the left side of Keith’s neck. Before he leans in he pauses and looks questioningly at Keith, who nods. Smiling, Lance dives in and kisses every inch of Keith’s neck he can reach.

Keith seems to enjoy it, if the hands tightening on Lance’s waist are any sort of indicator, so Lance takes a risk, chooses a spot near Keith’s pulse, and sucks. Keith gasps and then groans out, “Lance.”

“Yeah?” Lance grins against Keith’s new mark, giving soothing kisses so the newly sore spot.

“Come here.” Keith practically whines, causing Lance to grin into his neck again.

“I’m right here.”

“Damn you,” Keith huffs, “Come here so I can kiss you!”

Lance huffs a laugh against Keith’s neck and places one last kiss to the new mark, before slowly making his way up Keith’s neck with sloppy kisses.

Keith barely paused the second Lance reached his mouth and yanks him in, kissing him deeply. Lance gets sucked into Keith’s kisses easily, it seems, because they spend the next five minutes trading desperate kisses before he manages to yank himself a short distance away from Keith’s mouth.

“Keith?” Lance sighs.

“Yeah?” Keith leans in for another kiss, which Lance obliges him.

“Want to stay in here tonight?” Lance asks nervously.

“Uh,” Keith tenses up. “Just sleep, or-?”

“Yeah,” Lance smiles softly against Keith’s lips before giving him another long kiss, seemingly unable to resist Keith when he’s looking all kiss-rumpled. “Just sleep.”

“‘Kay,” Keith smiles softly and softly disentangles himself from Lance. He steps to the edge of Lance’s bed, takes off his shoes, and pauses, looking up at Lance. “You coming?”

“Yeah,” Lance smiles, “I’m coming.”

He shuts off the light and climbs into bed after Keith, who lays his head in the crook of Lance’s neck, and it isn’t until they’re almost asleep that Lance remembers he has something very important to say.

“Hey Keith?” He whispers in the darkness, unsure of whether or not Keith was even awake.

“Hmmm?” Comes the sleepy response from the boy currently buried in Lance’s neck.

“You look unfairly good with white hair,” Lance whispers. Keith huffs a laugh against his neck before placing a light kiss on Lance’s pulse point.

“Even with the mullet?” He asks in response.

“Even with the mullet.” Lance confirms, placing a kiss on Keith’s temple.

 

**Author's Note:**

> come cry about what S4 will bring on tumblr with me!


End file.
